Kwacha steady as Rand rallies

BUUMBA CHIMBULU writes THE Zambian Kwacha on Friday traded steadily amid flat demand for hard currency from commercial banks and merchandise importers, Absa Bank Zambia has said. Absa indicated that commercial banks at 08:30 hours in Lusaka quoted the Kwacha at K18.00/18.05 per dollar. According to Absa, the local unit traded range bound as demand and supply were evenly matched throughout the day. “At close of business the Kwacha was trading at K18.0500/18.1000 on the bid and offer respectively. “In the near term, the local unit is expected to gain as corporates prepare to settle their month end obligations,” Absa indicated. Elsewhere, South Africa’s rand raced to its highest in more than eight weeks against the dollar, as optimism about a global recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic boosted riskier assets, with investors looking past Sino-United States trade tensions. On the local money market, the Liquidity levels in the market significantly increased in Friday’s trading session to K2, 518.69 million from K1, 060.64 million. Absa however indicated that the volumes of the funds traded on the interbank adversely reduced to K339.00 from K572.00 million. It further said due to the policy rate cut by the Bank of Zambia, the overnight weighted interbank rate was down at 10.21 percent from 12.10 percent. Meanwhile, copper prices rose on Tuesday as investors took comfort in the possibility that countries re-opening from the coronavirus lockdown could fuel an economic recovery and demand for metals.  Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was up one percent at US$5,342 a tonne, while the most-traded July copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange advanced 0.7 percent to 43,770 Yuan a tonne. The Sun